


Too Late to Say it Now

by VigilanteSnail



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Oneshot, Pining, Regret, idk why I do this to my favourite characters.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:37:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3849487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VigilanteSnail/pseuds/VigilanteSnail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukkishima really should've said it sooner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Late to Say it Now

Tsukki POV

I stare across at the table, face blank. The latest in a string of single dates - a tall, freckled boy - sits in front of me. Objectively, the man isn’t really attractive - quite on the contrary, he’s vaguely reminiscent of Yama. 

Yama. 

Yama with his upturned button nose and that stupid spray of freckles across his nose. Yama with his obsession with French Fries and making me smile. 

I haven’t smiled in forever, it seems like. 

"...Shima, are you even listening to me?" Katse-something asks, jolting me out of my reverie. He glares at me, obviously noticing his lack of enthusiasm for pursuing anything with him. He sighs and gets up, "Look, Kageyama told me that you're getting over something, so I get that I won't have one hundred percent of your attention, but you could at least make an effort. I came all the way from Tokyo." After a moment of deliberation, he puts a business card next to my strawberry shortcake. 

"Call me when you're ready to actually have a relationship."

Kageyama wouldn’t be happy. After graduation, we both wound up attending the same university. He was on a volleyball scholarship to earn a degree in Science of Rehabilitation to eventually become a personal trainer, and I went to earn my undergraduate degree in Paleontology. Somehow, as the fates would have it, we became roommates.

During our time living together, we reached a sort of understanding. Over time, it evolved into something resembling a friendship. Now, refusing the fact that we’re quite close is proving to be difficult for the King, as he sets me up with every freckled face in Japan.

The newest one shoved at me, Katseru Aoki, according to his business card, was apparently a teacher friend of Hinata’s. Oh shit, Hinata’s going to be on my ass about it now, too.

I stare after him impassively as he leaves, and look back down at my cake, untouched. Once upon a time, Yamaguchi would have laughed at me for eating it so quickly, and wiped off the frosting around my mouth with his fingers. Once upon a time is starting to feel a lot more like a fairytale, though. 

\--flashback--

"Tsukki, say something."  
I look into Yama's eyes, completely stoic, but all the while feeling myself fall apart.   
"Tsukki, please," Yamaguchi sobs.   
His eyes are hazel, with pretty little flecks of green in them. I stay silent.   
"Goddamn it Tsukki say something!" He starts screaming at me, shoving my chest with all the might he can muster. 

"Why won't you say something? I screwed him Tsukki! Do you want to hear all about that?" 

Tears are streaming down his face, and I can't do anything but watch. My world is crumbling, and all I can do is try to stand against his words, his hands, his everything. 

"I let him fuck me," Yama is shaking, and his hands are clutching at my shirt as he spits out, "I let him fuck me. I've only ever let you do it, but suddenly I thought what did It matter? You don't care about me anyway, you never have. You just stand there and sneer at people like an emotionless bastard. I used to think you were just scared, running from your feelings like a little boy. But either you're so damaged that you're hiding from yourself, or you really have no heart. I'm starting to think its the latter."

With every hateful word he whispers to me, I can feel one more piece of me chipping off, flaking away. 

How did it come to this? We were so in love, so perfect together. How did it come to yelling and screaming and cheating and suffocating because it's just so hard to breath, just so damn hard to breath?

When I come back to earth, Yama already has his jacket on and is leaving with his car keys. Hesitating, he turns back for a moment. 

"Tell me, Tsukki, that you love me. Tell me that you love me right now, and I'll stay. I won't leave."

I love you, Yama, I love you, I love you, I love you. 

He waits for a moment, then laughs, a high, cold, heartbreakingly beautiful sound. 

"I thought so. God, Tsukishima, you really are something else, you know that? You can rot in hell for all I care. Maybe down there you'll finally find something to warm that heart of yours."

I stand there for what seems like hours, my legs cramping and my feet numbing before I finally crumple on the floor. Finally, finally the floodgates break open. It feels like a million hands are tearing at my stomach and chest, and suddenly my throat is closing up and I can't breathe and none of that matters because Yama left. Yama left because I couldn't say three simple fucking words after seven years of knowing they were true. 

"I love you." I whisper to the empty apartment. 

"I love you, I love you, I love you," I start screaming, grabbing my hair and not even caring that it stings and I can feel hair coming out. I scream until my voice is hoarse and even then I still scream. I scream until my voice abandons me, and all I can do move my mouth helplessly against the air.

I love you. I love you. I repeat it like a mantra.

\--end flashback--

The waiter is looking at me impatiently, a gangly kid with pimples across the top of his forehead. 

"Listen man, you've been whispering some shit for a few minutes now, and it's disturbing the other patrons, so you need to either leave or cut it out."

I look at him, hard, and he falters slightly under my glare. In a few minutes I'm walking down the street, crisp air blowing in my face as I make my way home. 

I tried to forget Yamaguchi, but it's impossible. Being the server for the Nagasaki national team earns him recognition, and there's a special kind of torture I get from watching him hit a float serve on TV. His determination to become a professional volleyball player never faltered all through university, and he even switched from a degree in business to one in sports science, so he could pursue his dream.

I'm almost at the door to my building when I see coach Ukai putting up a poster with Yanaguchi's face blown up on it, advertising the Karasuno volleyball team. He waves at me and keeps on walking, completely oblivious to my internal screaming. I walk up to the poster, the airbrushed photo of Yama's eyes staring straight into mine, his freckles erased with makeup. For a moment, everything is still. There is only me and Yamaguchi, until a gust of wind pulls up one of the corners of his poster. I flatten it against the post with the palm of my hand, and whisper something to Yama that I should've said years ago. 

The wind steals my words from me, carrying them out over the small town where Yama and I grew up and shared all of our first experiences together. It takes them, refusing to relinquish them, and paints them across the sky and the trees, the grass and the pavement. 

I love you.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So basically I wanted Tsukkiyama angst and… This happened. I know it’s short, and I could have made it longer, but I think it would’ve felt forced. This is the first story under this account because all of my other stuff is pretty shit and I just wanted to have a fresh start. What better than a old one-shot written at 2 in the morning to commemorate this? I love hearing constructive criticism, so have at it! Thanks for reading ~ xx Snail


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